Joliet Jobs Agency Closing In On Bus Funds

A Joliet agency that helps welfare recipients find employment announced Thursday that it is closer to securing the local matching funds needed for a federal grant to improve area bus service.

Officials of JACOB, the Joliet Area Church-based Organized Body, said two state legislators have secured $30,000, which is half of the $60,000 the group needs for its portion toward getting a $233,000 federal grant.

Pace, the suburban bus service, will provide $60,000 toward the project. The grant was contingent upon a local body raising $120,000.

JACOB is working to secure the money so bus service can be extended in the evenings and on weekends, which would allow potential workers in Joliet and Lockport Township who don't have cars to get to jobs in DuPage County.

Buses now run from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and for limited times on Saturdays.

Rosetta Flowers, who works on JACOB's transportation task force, said that if the bus route hours were extended, one Joliet-based temporary employment agency has said it would hire 25 workers.

"The people in Joliet would like to see the evening bus services extended to at least 10 o'clock so that the jobs that are present in the area would be made accessible to them," Flowers said.

"We have learned that there are people who are reluctant to apply for jobs because they have no transportation. Some have said that they have been denied jobs because of a lack of transportation."

At a press conference Thursday, members of JACOB's transportation task force said state Sen. Larry Walsh (D-Elwood) and state Rep. Jack McGuire (D-Joliet) had secured $30,000, which will be provided through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs.

Flowers said that the group had asked both Will County and the City of Joliet to help provide the remaining $30,000. Will County officials "said no emphatically" and Joliet officials "did not commit, but they did not say no."

McGuire said that he and Walsh would try to help further by seeking money through the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Flowers and other JACOB members have argued that along with passage of the federal law in 1996 that requires public aid recipients to find work or to engage in work-related activities, such as job training, must come access to jobs.

"There is universal agreement that access to affordable transportation is the key to getting people to work," said Flowers.

She cited a 1995 study that indicated that 26 percent of low-income households and 36 percent of single-parent households do not own cars.

Car ownership also can consume a large portion of a low-income household's budget, she noted.

"This creates a dilemma," said Flowers."Without good paying jobs, people cannot afford their own transportation . . . and without transportation they cannot get to good paying jobs."